Louis Henry Saban (October 13, 1921 – March 29, 2009) was an American professional football player and coach. He played for Indiana University in college and as a professional for the Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) between 1946 and 1949. Saban then began a long coaching career. After numerous jobs at the college level, he became the first coach of the Boston Patriots in the American Football League (AFL) in 1960. He joined the Buffalo Bills two years later, and led the team to consecutive AFL championships in 1964 and 1965. Saban was the first head coach to win multiple AFL championships, with only Hank Stram passing him. After serving briefly as head coach at the University of Maryland, he was hired as head coach of the Denver Broncos in 1967, where he remained for five years. Saban returned to the Bills—by then in the National Football League (NFL) following the AFL–NFL merger—from 1972 to 1976, reaching the playoffs once but failing to bring Buffalo another championship.
Following his departure from Buffalo, Saban returned to college coaching. He coached teams including the University of Miami, Army, University of Central Florida and Peru State College. He also coached at the high school level and for two Arena Football League teams. Saban switched jobs frequently and developed a reputation as an itinerant. At Central Florida, he was nicknamed Lou "two point two" Saban because he typically stayed in a coaching job for about 2.2 years. Saban initially dismissed this characterization, but came to accept it later in life. He held 21 coaching jobs during his 50-year career (lasting an average of 2.38 years for each job), which ended with a job at Chowan University in North Carolina between 2001 and 2002. Saban's combined record as a coach in the AFL and NFL was 95–99–7. His college football record was 94–99–4. Saban suffered from heart problems and had a fall in his home that required hospitalization in 2009. He died in March of that year.
Playing career High school and college Saban was the son of immigrants from Croatia and grew up near La Grange, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His first job, at age nine, was as a caddy for Al Capone's brother Ralph at a Chicago golf course. He was the brother of John Saban. He attended Lyons Township High School and joined the school's football team. A runner and passer, he led his high school's athletic conference in scoring as a senior and was named an all-state and all-conference halfback.
Saban's high school coach was an Indiana University alumnus and convinced him to enroll there. Saban played for the Indiana Hoosiers football team starting in 1940. He was used as a quarterback in 1941, his sophomore year. He also played as a linebacker and a placekicker. Saban was named to the Associated Press All-Big Ten second team as a quarterback in 1942. He was the captain of Indiana's 1942 team and was selected as its most valuable player. Saban was also a standout shot putter, winning a Big Ten Conference competition at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1943 with a throw of 48 feet and 11 1/2 inches.
Later in 1943, Saban joined the U.S. Army as World War II intensified following the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1944, he was selected to compete in the College All-Star Game, a now-defunct annual contest between the National Football League champion and a selection of the best college players from around the country. Saban, then stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia, was named the college team's second Most Valuable Player after quarterback Glenn Dobbs of the University of Tulsa. He kicked three extra points and played on the defensive line in the all-stars' 24–21 loss to the Chicago Bears. Saban played for Fort Benning's 1944 Third Infantry Cockades football team, while stationed there. He also studied Chinese for five months at the University of California and served in China and India as an Army interpreter.
Cleveland Browns Saban was selected 88th overall in the 10th round of the 1944 NFL draft by Card-Pitt, a temporary merger between the Chicago Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers made necessary after the teams were gutted by players' military service. Saban, however, did not sign with Card-Pitt, and instead joined the Cleveland Browns, a team under formation in the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and coached by Paul Brown. Brown said Saban would be used exclusively on defense as a linebacker and as a kicker of extra points. Saban was one of the first arrivals at the Browns' training camp in Bowling Green, Ohio, having left China just three weeks before.
Despite Brown's intentions, Saban was used occasionally on the Browns' offense in 1946. He caught a 44-yard pass from quarterback Otto Graham in a September game against the Buffalo Bisons. He was mainly used as a linebacker, however, and had four interceptions as the Browns won the first AAFC championship. In the offseason, he worked for Browns owner Mickey McBride's Yellow Cab Company; many of his teammates spent the offseason either at college making up for time lost to the war or taking jobs to supplement their football incomes.
Saban was named the Browns' captain in 1946 after Jim Daniell, the first team captain, was arrested in a scuffle with Cleveland police and was kicked off the team at the end of the season. The following year, he filled in to kick extra points when the team's regular placekicker, Lou Groza, was injured. The Browns amassed a 12–1–1 regular-season record in 1947 and won the AAFC championship for the second time in a row.
Never having finished his degree at Indiana, Saban enrolled that summer at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. After the 1948 season, in which Cleveland won all of its games and a third championship, Saban was named to two news outlets' all-AAFC teams. Saban came into his own as a linebacker in 1948. "Saban has been regarded as the best in football at his position for two years", Brown said in November. "If anything, he's even better this year. He has improved on covering pass receivers." He was a unanimous all-AAFC selection in 1949, when the Browns won their fourth AAFC championship in a row. Saban announced his retirement before the championship game and said in December that he was seeking the head coaching job at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland before its merger with the Western Reserve University forming the Case Western Reserve University.
Coaching career College Saban beat more than 50 applicants to win the head coaching job at Case in February 1950, thanks to what the university's president called his "unusually sound knowledge of football" and his "leadership qualities". Saban "possesses the sort of personality and character that is of great value in work with young men", the president said. Saban was 28 years old at the time, and the appointment made him one of the youngest college head coaches in the country. Saban borrowed coaching techniques from Brown, alongside his version of the T formation offense.
Saban's team finished the 1950 season with four wins and four losses. By 1951, he was already under consideration for coaching jobs at bigger schools, including Indiana University and Toledo University, where he was mentioned as a "dark horse" candidate to replace former Browns teammate Don Greenwood. His Case teams compiled a 10–14–1 record during his tenure as head coach from 1950 to 1952. Saban resigned in March 1953 to become an assistant at the University of Washington under head coach John Cherberg. He spent just one year at Washington before getting a job as an assistant coach at Northwestern University, saying he wanted to return to the Midwest.
In February 1955, Saban was promoted to head coach at Northwestern, succeeding Bob Voigts and becoming the youngest coach in the Big Ten Conference at 33 years old. Saban hired George Steinbrenner as one of his assistant coaches. Saban's tenure as coach of the Northwestern Wildcats football team, however, was brief and unsuccessful. Hampered by injuries, the team lost all of its games in 1955, and calls intensified for Saban's firing as the season wore on. In December, Saban and his entire staff were fired by new athletic director Stu Holcomb. Ara Parseghian was named as his replacement.
Saban moved on to a job as head coach at Western Illinois University in 1957, where he quickly built up a successful team. The Western Illinois Leathernecks finished with a record of 6–1–1 in 1958, followed by an undefeated 9–0 season in 1959, when Saban also served as an assistant under Otto Graham in the College All-Star Game. Having built up a 20–5–1 record over three seasons as coach, Saban drew interest from the professional ranks, and the Boston Patriots of the newly formed American Football League (AFL) hired him as head coach before the circuit's inaugural season in 1960.
Professional Led by quarterback Butch Songin, Saban's Patriots posted a 5–9 record in their first season. The following April, Saban brought in quarterback Babe Parilli, who formerly played for the Browns and Green Bay Packers, as a backup in the AFL's biggest-ever trade at the time. Five games into the 1961 season, however, with the Patriots at 2–3, Saban was fired and replaced by assistant Mike Holovak. Patriots owner Billy Sullivan said the decision was made by a majority vote of the team's board of directors, who "just simply felt all the talent on our team had not been used and felt Mike was the man who would be able to use the talent we had to the extent that it is capable of performing."
In January 1962, Saban was named the coach of the Buffalo Bills, another AFL team, signing a one-year contract worth $20,000 ($ in dollars). The Bills had a 7–6–1 record in Saban's first season and came in third in the AFL's eastern division behind the Houston Oilers and the Patriots. Cookie Gilchrist, a running back who signed with the Bills after nine years in the Canadian Football League, won most valuable player honors that year and recorded the AFL's first 1,000-yard rushing season. Saban also acquired Jack Kemp, a quarterback, from the San Diego Chargers, who had put him out on waivers while he recovered from a finger injury. Sportswriter Randy Schultz called it one of the biggest bargains in professional football history.
The Bills posted a 7–6–1 record again in 1963, but this time it was enough to tie with the Patriots for the best record in the eastern division. This set up the AFL's first-ever playoff game to decide which of the teams would win the division and compete in the championship. The Bills lost the game, 26–8.
Helped by Gilchrist's running and quarterback Kemp's passing, the Bills finished the 1964 season with a 12–2 record and won the AFL championship. The team won despite drama involving Gilchrist, who came into conflict with Saban frequently and asked to be traded on numerous occasions. The Bills released him on waivers in November 1964, but canceled the move when Gilchrist apologized. After the 1964 AFL championship win over the Chargers, Saban was named the league's coach of the year.